Shadowcroft Academy For Dungeons: Year Two, page 33
The fox fiend went through them all, commenting on their powers and how they handled their midterm, until she stepped up to Logan. She was about a foot shorter than he was, and it was a little odd, since the fox fiend had such an enormous presence. The mallet helped.
“Logan Murray, the fungaloid! You know, back in the day, mushroom dungeons were the worst. Those spores? The digestion? The smell? Happy gosh and I don’t mean tosh, I’ve tangled with some bad mushroomy-room-rooms all right. How in the gosh did you survive last year?” Ji-Soo’s very blue eyes sparkled as she weighed and measured him.
It was Logan’s turn to be embarrassed. “I, uh, had help. From my friends.”
“Symbiotic help, obvi!” the fox fiend said loudly. “Such power in that. Such danger...” She let that last word linger in the air like a promise of violence to come.
Professor Zantho spun over in a flash of gold dust. “Now, Ji, weren’t you about to attack the Dread Summoner’s Caves?”
Ji-Soo coughed like she was trying to clear a hairball. “Ugh. That guy. The worst. Believe me, it won’t last long. He has a thing for your typical minion classes. Boring. Yawn. Yuck. You have your orc foot soldiers, your orc mages, your orc chieftains. Orcs, ogre, stone giant. Rinse and repeat. Here he could’ve summoned some truly unique monsters, and he went the Saruman route. Yawn! Like, he wishes he was a Saruman.”
“How do Null Arenas work?” Logan asked. “We all have questions about this whole process. I’m not seeing it.”
Ji-Soo’s tail grew even bushier and brushed Logan’s face. “Oh, aren’t you cute in a very spongy dank way. Sure thing, my fungal friend, let’s get talking dungeon destruction! Gosh, I love this stuff. I really, really, really do! It’s a calling more than a job. You know what they say, if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. And I love killing rogue dungeons, awoo.”
Marko stood on his hooves, but he might as well have been floating a foot off the ground. He was staring in rapture at the demonic fox fiend.
Ji-Soo seemed to get serious. Then she winked at them. “So, so let’s talk Null Arenas.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Logan watched the little candy creatures and some of the sentient stuffed animals totter out of the cathedral, which was as much a set for a music video as it was the inner sanctum of a fearsome Arcandor dungeon core. The fluffy pink unicorns were also leaving, along with the Pegasus ponies, swinging their very fluffy white tails.
Ji-Soo had her mallet resting on her shoulder. “Okay, everyone, it’s not so very complicated. I’m sure that ZZ has gone over the basics of offensive dungeon design. And gosh, I can’t get over the dungeon satyr and what he did in his midterms! So scary!”
“It was.” Marko was dazed. “Would you like to hear me play one of my town-clearing songs? I have the Luden lute.” He suddenly had the full-sized lute in his hands.
Logan winced. He didn’t want to hear that thing play a note.
“That’s okay, sweetie,” the fox fiend said with a wink. “Don’t be the guy with the guitar at the party. It generally isn’t a good look. And we do need to get to work. Now, you know, the Arcandor, that’s a bounty hunter dungeon, which is me. Back in the day, it was ZZ and me against the world. We were both recruited by the Council of Dungeons for our ability to track and manipulate Null Arenas. Can everyone say ‘Null Arena?’”
Everyone was stunned for a minute.
Fractilla, the ice imp from the Ninth Circle, did shout out, “Null Arena!”
Chadrigoth sighed flames. “We’re college students, not elementary students.”
“Spoken like an Eritrean stick in the butt.” Ji-Soo giggled. “Points to the ice imp for joining in! Yay, you!”
“Null Arena!” Both Marko and Melvin were late to the party—Marko because he was so smitten, and Melvin because he never missed a chance to be awkward.
Both stood there shamelessly smiling.
Steven put a squeaky hand to his face and shook his head in mannequin embarrassment.
Tet groaned. “That is the appropriate reaction, Steve. Very well done.”
Ji-Soo continued. “Some dungeon cores are more adept at creating Null Arenas than others. Just like some cores are more playful than others. Or more handsome, in a fungal way.” She glanced at Logan over one shoulder.
Logan was shocked to hear that. Could mushroom men blush?
Inga laughed at his reaction.
Ji-Soo paced back and forth in front of the students. “A Null Arena is a large interdimensional corridor that exists slightly outside of space and time, connecting the entrance of one dungeon to another. It is, in essence, a temporary wormhole between two Celestial Nodes, a temporal anomaly that isn’t so different from the way the BYE portal works. Since you’re all from Arborea, you even have a local version—the DIE network.
“Your headmaster would’ve made a great Arcandor himself. Those portals move you from one dungeon location to another instantaneously. As dungeon guardians, we can do the same with a little effort. Most dungeons don’t practice the skill much, since there really is no reason to establish an inter-dungeon connection. Other than for malicious or predatory purposes. But that is why this class is so important. Establishing an unauthorized inter-dungeon connection is universally considered an act of aggression.”
“Then why teach us about it at all?” Inga asked. “Aren’t you basically giving us the tools to break dungeon law?”
“Of course we are!” Ji-Soo chirped. “But you would learn this on your own anyway. Eventually. And the reality is, any dungeon core that is around for long enough will eventually tangle with a predatory dungeon. It’s inevitable. And they often target the very young or newly graduated. Dungeons without much experience make easy targets, because they don’t know how to properly defend themselves. This will give you a fighting chance—especially since the predatory dungeon will be attacking from a position of power. You see, the dungeon that goes on the offensive first has a significant advantage, much like the player who has the first move in a game of chess, because they get to dictate the shape and general form of the Null Arena. I’m pretty good at that part.”
“You’re amazing,” Marko gasped. He was having trouble breathing around her.
“Aww, you’re sweet.” Ji-Soo fluttered her eyelashes at him.
Marko nearly had a heart attack.
Zantho flew in between Marko and the fox fiend. “And that, maggots, is an example of false modestly. Ji-Soo can create the best, most diabolical Null Arenas around.”
“I believe it,” Marko muttered under his breath.
Zantho raised a finger. “Shut it, goat boy. Let the fox fiend talk.”
Inga raised her hand.
Ji-Soo giggled. “Gosh, I haven’t done the teacher thing in ages. You all are so lucky to have ZZ, and I hope Samgath Goblinwhimper has some game. He doesn’t. But a fox girl can dream. Ask your question, pretty Mothmancer.”
Inga blushed. “Ms. Ji-Soo, how does one track down a predatory dungeon in the first place?”
Ji-Soo stopped, blinked, and smiled. Her eyes were hazy and distant. “Sorry, pretty moth, but if you’ll excuse me, I have to get to my entrance. Our Samgath is powering down a wing of his dungeon. I want to establish the tether while he’s unaware, and I need my guardian form for that. It’s a little time sensitive, so let me just swap forms real quick...”
Ji-Soo turned away and waved over a ten-foot-tall cloud-blue teddy bear. The demonic fox fiend’s guardian form hurried out of the candy-walled cathedral. Other giant teddy bears followed close on her heels, all of them different colors. It was like the Care Bears had fallen into a vat of radioactive material and then grew into giants. How they were going to attack with plush claws, Logan had no idea.
The blue bear spoke with Ji-Soo’s voice, even though her guardian form was scurrying out of sight. “Okay, gosh, Inga, that’s a great question. How does one track down a bad dungeon?”
“How did you know my name?” the Mothmancer asked.
The blue bear rolled her doll eyes. “You’re Inga Thosa Therian. I have friends on Toriopa. I have friends everywhere,” she said. “You’re so smart! So glad you’re at the Shadowcroft Academy. It’s a great fit for someone with so much promise.”
“Right, but why exactly do you know so much about us?” Chadrigoth hissed.
The teddy bear laughed in the same happy sweet laughter as the fox girl. “Gosh, your majesty, I have to know who is in the various schools. I actively track who might be graduating and who might be a problem. That way, if they go rogue, I can hunt them down and shatter their core, silly. Like you, sweetie. If you turn, you’ll die.” The bear giggled, but there was an ominous threat lingering beneath the mirth.
Logan felt a chill race up his spine... if he had a spine. His rubbery fungal flesh quivered.
Chadrigoth frowned and crossed his arms.
“Back to the pretty moth’s question!” the blue bear said. “Actually, tracking down a predatory dungeon is one of the most difficult and dangerous parts of an Arcandor’s job. You see, although a dungeon may have multiple dungeon locations, they only ever have one core. They control all of their ancillary Celestial Nodes from the Prime Dungeon Location. In order to truly defeat a predatory dungeon, it is not enough to merely capture the secondary location— you have to find the location of the Prime Dungeon and crack that core like a happy ol’ bear cracks open a pot of honey. I love honey! Who here loves honey?”
Inga raised her hand, but Marko was faster. “Me, Ji-Soo, I love honey!”
Logan wasn’t too sure about that.
The bear playfully knocked Marko’s face with a soft paw. “I could just eat you up.”
Ji-Soo then returned to Inga’s question. “Here’s the thing, moth girl, predatory dungeons often conceal their true locations. I leave the Pink Rink all the time to follow clues which ultimately help me find these Prime Dungeon Locations. Actually, I bopped over to Nightfall University about six weeks ago, tracked Samgath, who just graduated from there, and found he preferred your stereotypical wasteland environments.
“We’ll be opening a Null Arena to the Blane Wastes of Tull. I hate Tull. It’s so dry there, almost as bad as the Dry Desert here on Bharoosh, so dusty and windy. And so orc-y, you know? I took the BYE there, asked around the town, listened to some piano music in an old bar. Most of the locals were friendly, if a little startled by a fox fiend in a cloak. I didn’t wear my cloak today. I look very mysterious when I do!”
“I am so sure you do!” Marko burst out. Steve went over and put a hand on the satyr’s shoulder to calm him down.
The blue bear laughed at the dungeon satyr. “Anyway, Samgath killed the dungeon who’d been there before, a poor wereboar who had gone to town on a very pig-themed dungeon. Old Bill called it the Pigsty of Swinery, not the best name, but the dungeon design itself was solid. Old Bill, though, chose the wrong time to work on some of his stables, and Samgath caught him unaware. Wiped out Bill, took his Apothos, and set up shop with all these big plans of taking over all of Tull. Samgath has sights on five other dungeons. So the council called me.”
The bubblegum gemstone on the altar flashed, showing them the front entrance of the Pink Rink. However, instead of the stone steps leading to the surface, a colorful corridor of ornate wooden walls stretched out into a cathedral similar to Ji-Soo’s inner sanctum.
Ji-Soo’s voice was coming from all around them now.
“So, guys, this is the Null Arena. Notice, I have the columns and such because I want to hide my forces. Also, I included a ton of alcoves! Look at all the alcoves!”
Ji-Soo’s collection of cuteness had run into the alcoves—glitter kitties, stuffed-animal soldiers, candy warriors, and marshmallow marauders. Her big hulking teddy bears were hiding behind columns. The precious winged ponies circled through the cathedral, flying high above the cobblestone ground. They finally found perches—rock ledges big enough to handle their girth. A herd of fluffy pink unicorns was still in a vestibule on the fox fiend’s side of the arena.
So far, nothing had come creeping out on Samgath Goblinwhimper’s side, which was your stereotypical abandon-all-hope-ye-who-enter-here huge wooden doors with rusted iron fittings. Not a pig theme, just your typical unimaginative dungeon entrance.
Logan took a minute to realize the power involved here. Not only was Ji-Soo running the Pink Rink, keeping the corridors, rooms, and traps full of Apothos, but she had also created the cathedral, the Null Arena, connecting her entrance to Goblinwhimper’s. At the same time, she had her many minions locked and loaded. How deadly could marshmallow marauders and candy warriors be? Maybe a lot. The warriors had licked their candy canes down to sharpened points—like Christmas spears hungry for blood.
Chadrigoth looked on, sneering. “Let’s just go up there and kill this Samgath guy. I mean, we have some of the best dungeon cores at the school here. The fungus included. I’d love to see Professor Zantho use her gold dust to annihilate some orcs.”
Everyone turned to look at the abyss lord. Then they turned to look at Professor Zantho.
Logan was a little confused by the compliment.
The Fairy Fetch glanced at the big blue bear. “Well, Ji, what do you think about that? I wouldn’t mind seeing Shadowcroft’s best and brightest rip apart some orcs.”
The blue giant looked like she had eaten Grumpy Bear. “Are you kidding? This won’t take long. For one, Samgath likes to think of himself as an offensive dungeon expert. He’s going to be throwing the stone giant he summoned first. In three, two, one...”
The iron-clad doors burst open and a twenty-foot-tall grotesque creature, part stone, part flesh, came shambling out dragging a tree branch. The stone giant ripped off one of the big rocky growths on his arm. He hurled the boulder at a column. It exploded into fragments.
The entire Null Arena shook, but the ceiling held. Probably because it wasn’t moored in reality—like Ji-Soo had said, Null Arenas were slightly outside of space and time. The Null Arena followed its own rules, which probably had allowed Ji-Soo to form ledges up high for her pretty winged ponies.
The Pegasi waited up there as a hundred orcs came howling and running behind the stone giant, following him through the cathedral. Orc wizards were mixed in with the orc minions and orc chieftains, all heavily armored and wielding giant axes. The biggest of the chieftain orcs had enormous yellow tusks and carried two wicked scimitars.
The blue bear pointed. “This is where Samgath got it all wrong, people. Oh my gosh, how wrong? So wrong! I prepped my little babies to charge into the barracks and spring his traps, and he had a few slime pits. Big blobby slimes, kind of wonderful, actually. I like a good slime. Now, he’s going to waste most of his minions on this one attack. Big show of force, like he’s trying to scare me off. He has no idea who he’s dealing with. Watch now. Gonna take out the big stone giant so it doesn’t hurt my babies.”
The fox fiend in the yellow tracksuit rushed into the cathedral with her giant mallet. She had some kind of speed spell and enhanced dexterity—she moved like the wind. The fox fiend also seemed to have some kind of mirror skill, because she split into nine different women in yellow as she ran. Eight of them slammed into the orc army while the ninth laid that mallet into the leg of the stone giant, breaking apart his kneecap and sending him to the floor. Then she hurled herself into the air and mashed the giant’s head into the ground.
She landed on the body, threw a V with her fingers, and then laughed. “V for victory!”
Her minions left their secret alcoves and hit like a wave of deadly cuteness.
Glitter kittens exploded into showers of sparkles. They were suicide troopers, meowing wildly before blasting apart orc after orc. The fluffy pink unicorns thundered forward on hooves, their glowing horns like conical disco balls, which gave the battlefield a certain razzle dazzle. Those horns burned off the black blood of the orcs as the razor-sharp hooves ripped open armor and skin to the bone. The blood hit the unicorns’ fluffy fur. But like with their horns, the unicorns burned the gore from their bodies, leaving them shiny and clean.
Marshmallow marauders let out tiny war cries. They didn’t really attack to kill, but they did slow down the enemy. The marauders ran right into the legs of the orcs, gumming them up so they couldn’t move, and the candy people waded in with their candy cane spears, overwhelming the orcs. The stuffed animal horde followed, growing steel wolverine claws from their plush paws.
The orcish monsters tried to stab or bash the candy people, but they were just too small and too quick. And the stuffed animals were too pliant.
Inga gazed at the carnage and nodded. “Like my Tsuki Ants. Sometimes bigger is not always better. Multiple smaller minions can ravage just as well as larger creatures.”
“You’re so right, pretty Mothmancer! Gosh! This is exciting!” The blue bear giggled like the fox fiend had. “Notice, I’m holding back my happy little winged ponies because I’m assuming Samgath isn’t going to stop. He’ll have ogres. Probably a dozen. They’ll be big and ugly and full of his Apothos, flavored like Umbra and Vita. I mean, he summons life from the shadows. Funny, his last name is Goblinwhimper, but he doesn’t do anything with goblins, hob or otherwise.”
The giant teddy bears lumbered forward, each step shaking the floor. Their heads flipped back. From their necks shot a dozen writhing tentacles that snatched up orcs and drew them forward. The teddy bear tummies split open to reveal vertical mouths with gigantic fangs. The orcs were rudely stuffed into the bears, and those chomping teeth took care of them in an instant. Logan was reminded of the sarlacc pit that Melvin carried around in his stomach under his chef whites.
“I’m so in love,” Marko said with a dazed look on his face.
The yellow fox girl, the main one, not her shadowy mirror images, did a complicated series of movements. It took a minute, but then Logan saw that some of the orcs around her were mimicking her choreography.
